Full operation delayed at new Brisbane terminal

Hutchison Ports Holdings
will officially open its new Brisbane container ­terminal next week as it sorts out ­teething problems with new automated ­equipment.

The Hong Kong group – which becomes Australia’s third stevedore, breaking up a duopoly between
Asciano
’s Patrick ports and
DP World
– has taken longer than expected to get established in Brisbane and is not yet operating at full capacity.

Hutchison is understood to have had difficulties introducing its new equipment, which was designed overseas, because Brisbane port workers were not used to the automated functions.

Hutchison claims to be the first ­stevedore in Australia to operate ­automated stacking cranes using an ­in-house technology system known as “nGen".

The technology, developed by Hutchison for its terminals in China and Hong Kong, tracks and manages the movement of containers in and out of terminals, and operates the automated cranes.

Hutchison says the system allows it to build taller and denser stacks of ­containers than conventional stacking machines because it does not need to leave room between container rows.

The Hong Kong group first introduced systems combining automated stacking cranes and the nGen tech­nology at its terminal in Barcelona; ­Brisbane and Sydney are the second and third terminals globally to adopt it.

Hutchison has been providing handling services since May to ships from Brisbane, where it operates one out of two planned berths, and from Sydney since November. Rival stevedore DP World is also introducing automated stacking cranes at its Brisbane terminal, while Patrick has focused on another kind of automated equipment – straddles known as AutoStrads.

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Asciano chief executive
John Mullen
has been pushing ahead with auto­mation plans for Port Botany so that Patrick remains competitive with Hutchison despite union opposition.

‘An impressive company’

Mr Mullen has previously described the Hong Kong operator as an “impressive and professional company" that will put up “a good fight" for its share of the Australian stevedoring market.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s chairman,
Rod Sims
, told The Australian Financial Review in November that Hutchison’s entry into the local market had sparked additional investments by existing ­stevedores, and that it would have “a positive effect" on further investment and shipping prices.

Hutchison has not released any information on what shipping contracts it has won in Australia, nor how many containers it is moving. However, it processed “a very small number of containers" in the year to June 30, according to the ACCC’s 2013 monitoring report.

The regulator forecasts the group’s Brisbane terminal will have capacity of 300,000 “twenty-foot equivalent units" (TEUs) by the end of 2013-2014, while its Sydney terminals should reach 320,000 TEUs.

Capacity is expected to double at Hutchison’s Brisbane terminal by 2014-15, and rise to ine million TEUs at its Sydney terminal by 2018-19.